


Tell No Lies (REPOSTED)

by mousaerato



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Blood and Injury, Corpse Desecration, Creepy, Drabble, Jealousy, M/M, Staged Crime Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2019-10-07 22:55:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17374763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mousaerato/pseuds/mousaerato
Summary: If you say it enough times, it may become true.





	Tell No Lies (REPOSTED)

**Author's Note:**

> I originally posted this in April of 2017. At the end of 2018, I received several comments about my works and general writing skill that really did a number on me. In a fit of anxiety, I deleted all my shuakeshu independent works, as I was only able to see the flaws and the failings in them. Two friends in the fanfic and Persona 5 community came to me today and asked me to put them back up.

_Thud._

The sound was more resolute than he expected; its source was heavier than his estimations, even taking the layers of fabric and height of the fall into account. Somehow, the trickster still managed to keep secrets from him – a cold fact that infuriated the last living being in the room.

Akechi Goro slipped the warm cylinder of his silencer back into his coat pocket, savoring the lingering heat and acrid scent of gunpowder that emanated from it. It soothed him, serving as indisputable proof that the case was closed and the game was over. After months of watching and studying his target, the charismatic detective triumphed over the arrogant, petty criminal. To think that it was ever a competition in the first place now made the brown-haired hitman scoff to himself.

Akechi Goro was better than Kurusu Akira. That fact was as clear as the blood that pooled from the pitch-haired head onto the cold tile of the interrogation room.

That trifling secret Joker had concealed meant nothing now, though it did get under his skin. Still, the metal that warmed Goro’s chest was cooling – too soon for his liking – and he had managed to finish his job with time to spare. With that in mind, Goro tugged at the ends of his gloves out of habit and ambled silently towards the felled form on the floor.

The so-called detective gave the body a cool, critical gaze with his russet eyes: it had fallen on its right side, arms bent at right angles as they had been when Akira rested his elbows on the table. Its hands were scuffed and bruised; judging from the ring of brown marks on his wrists, the police made certain to restrain him  _quite_ maliciously. For his crimes, Joker certainly deserved that. Its face – his face – was marred with swelling reddish-brown marks and cuts on the cheeks.  Hair wet with freshly-spilled blood covered the forehead and eyes, and from the angle of the fall, it was impossible to see the hole in the right side of his head.

Akechi Goro was better than Kurusu Akira. That reality was as obvious as the air that blithely filled his lungs as he knelt down before the breathless body.

 _I finally beat you,_ Goro thought.  _I’ve proven I’m superior to you._  A smug, serpentine smirk slithered its way onto his face at that truth, luxuriating in the up-close details of that reality and drinking them in like wine. It was  _justified, righteous_ even, for the detective to revel in his victory. Good had conquered evil – and to the victor go the spoils.

A black gloved hand tugged at the strands left untouched by the spilling blood, pulling out several with a derisive  _laugh._ “You always looked like you just rolled out of bed,” he murmured. After sliding the hairs into his front pocket, he spat another phrase: “lazy  _trash._ ” Akira never seemed to care about the expectations of others, even in how he looked. It was a glaring fault in character. He didn’t earn the right to be so carefree about it.

Akechi Goro was better than Kurusu Akira. That truth was as plain as the carefully-curated aesthetic of the Detective Prince, smile practiced to perfection and not a single hair out of place.

 _Just how far did your sloth and arrogance go?_  Goro wondered as his fingers traced along the pale, waxy skin of his jawline to the white collar of his turtleneck.  _What else were you careless about?_ The pads of Goro’s fingers brushed, pressed, and kneaded against the corpse’s chest and torso, nothing the lack of heat and the amount of  _give_ the skin responded with. The detective clicked his tongue in amusement before he taunted: “Were you really that out of shape?”

His hands reached the hem of Akira’s blazer, pulling at the black fabric inquisitively as he found the end of the white shirt beneath. He slipped under the soft, pale garment and spread his digits far apart, smoothing over the paling flesh and pressing into it with his fingers and the heel of his hand. As expected, there was a small layer of dense, firm muscle; a warm softness clung to his sides and to his abdomen, however, obscuring it. Goro’s teeth clenched together to hiss as he rolled his eyes: “Pathetic, Joker.” How could he ever have thought he could surpass the Charismatic Detective while still maintaining any vestiges of childishness?

Akechi Goro was better than Kurusu Akira. That fact was as apparent as the elegant tailored jacket that clung to his lean, stressed frame and the crisp striped tie that chafed his neck.

 _Why in the world were people ever so drawn to you?_ The question caught in his throat as the taste of bile licked at the back of it. Hostile, seething heat churned in his stomach, eventually pooling in a low, dark place inside him. The smirk on his face neutralized, leaving his face a cold, blank slate as his hand worked its way down to what was Akira’s belt. His chest tightened and his heart throbbed with anxiety and curiosity. Joker – Akira – had already kept one secret from him. He wouldn’t allow another.

_What did you have that made people throw themselves at you?! Why did you have their admiration?!_

The word “admiration” sounded a wrong note to him as he thought it. No, it wasn’t admiration that Akira had and Goro lacked. Goro knew admiration well; it was superficial, sickeningly sweet, and one-sided, with one party struggling in vain to touch even the base of the other’s sacrosanct pedestal. What Akira attracted was more equal, more reciprocal – sturdier, despite its ease and freedom. It was unfamiliar territory, novel and alluring, but Goro had managed – oh so cleverly, he thought – to avoid its snare unlike the others.

  _What did you do to them?_

Akechi Goro was better than Kurusu Akira. That reality was as obvious as the sound of his heart pounding in his ears before the world fell to the wayside in apathy.

Black-covered fingers deftly unbuckled the body’s belt and made quick work of the top pants button beneath them. Those same digits slipped beneath the gray elastic band of his friend’s underwear and slide downward, pushing past coarse black hairs that scraped the leather of his gloves to reach for what lay just beyond between his legs. The total, inexplicable loyalty Joker – Akira – inspired (and  _gave_ ), Goro thought, had to be from something…animalistic. Irrational.

Curious to test his theory, Goro wrapped his fingers around the girth, letting the pads of his fingers press and glide along the flaccid length slowly and intentionally; he was too consumed with the feeling of the flesh in his hands to notice the heat in his face or the  _hunger_  that coldly pooled in his own abdomen. When he reached the tip, he let his thumb brush over it before giving a squeeze as if to verify a fact, somehow. As he did so, he smirked and scoffed. He chuckled under his breath and smirked as he worked: “Well…definitely better than you there.”

 It was all so very  _disappointing._ After months of playing cat and mouse, this was the clear cut end. After hours upon hours of challenging him, fascinating him, infuriating him, and compelling him, Akira was clearly deficient. He was not clever. He was not fashionable. He was not strong or vigorous or gifted. Beneath the mask, he was nothing more than an  _ordinary_ young man, with an ordinary life, ordinary friends, and an ordinary heart.

Akechi Goro was better than Kurusu Akira. That fact was obvious to anyone else now. After thorough examination, he proved to himself that there was  _nothing_ to be envious of.

The manifestly superior detective replaced the corpse’s clothes, smugly smirking to himself when his work left no trace of his intrusion. Indeed, there would be no sign that he had committed the crime, no marks to connect him to the body, no sign they had ever touched – and with the death of his first friend and greatest foe, the intangible proof of their involvement would be burned and buried with him. All their conversations, all their trips, all those times spent alone – it would be as if that bond never existed…

_This is the last time we’ll be together._

A trickle of warmth burned at his throat; as it cooled, Goro felt a strange emptiness pang at his chest. Desperate to stifle it, he decided to take his gloating a step further. He removed the glove from his left hand and gripped it precisely in his right palm. He knelt closer to Akira’s body and ran his bare hand through his hair delicately, careful not to leave any strands pressed down unnaturally. Finally, he found a damp spot that barely touched the floor and gripped there, letting the blood that lingered soak into his palm. His skillful hands allowed him to replace his glove without a single drop of it staining the black material. With that, he exited the room, finally contented.

Akechi Goro was better than Kurusu Akira. He was fashionable, charismatic, brilliant – and needed no one. He had no use for bonds, friends, or love.


End file.
